Posted
by
Soulskillon Tuesday January 22, 2013 @08:57PM
from the move-'em-on,-head-'em-up dept.

massivepanic writes "For the longest time Canonical has slapped an LTS ("long term support") moniker on some of their Ubuntu releases. Currently, a new major release of the operating system happens every six months, and is supported for 18 months after release. Whereas in the past when LTS versions received two years support or more, the current model — starting with 12.04 — supports new LTS releases for five years. However, a recent public Google Hangouts session revealed that Canonical has been thinking about switching from the venerable LTS model to a rolling release, starting with version 14.04."

I like the idea of rolling releases, but given the amount of massively stupid crap that Ubuntu springs on us by just rolling it into a new release (unity, I'm looking at you), I also like the idea of freezing a Ubuntu box at a non-ugly release and having a box that at least receives security updates for a few years

I'm rockin' Debian "unstable" and it is frozen, and has been for some time. No new packages or updates will be accepted until the next Debian release is made, unless they are of a bugfix nature. Gnome 3 is stuck at Gnome 3.2, but Ubuntu 12.10 is rollin' Gnome 3.6, and it behaves much, much better.

In short, Debian is not a "rollling release" right now, nor is it current, even in the "unstable" branch. God have mercy on those fools who try to work with "stable" or "testing."

"Mainline" Linux Mint is derived from Ubuntu. And, I don't think they are doing rolling releases, as they depend on Ubuntu.

HOWEVER, Linux Mint Debian is a rolling release. It is NOT based on Ubuntu, but on Debian. LMDE is currently at Update Pack 6, while Linux Mint is still using the older, more standard version releases.

Rolling releases are one thing I would applaud Ubuntu if they did it. It's always been my pet peeve to have to upgrade to a newer version of the same distro every 6 months.

You don't have to upgrade to newer versions if you don't want to. Personally I prefer to have the version I'm going to use day in and day out to be tested in a production environment. I also want long term support, just in case I need it. I'm dual-booting Ubuntu 12.04 on my MacBook Pro, however when I find out out to I plan on installing Arch, Fedora 18, and or Linux Mint in a VM on a USB Flash drive. That way I can install VirtualBox on my laptop, I have it installed in Ubuntu but not Snow Leopard yet, and

I've tried using LTS on some machines, but it hasn't worked out well. The trouble with it is that Ubuntu's quality is crap, and that applies to LTS releases just as much as non-LTS. For instance, they started gratuitously breaking sound with Jaunty, and as of Precise it's still broken on some machines I use. When important stuff is randomly broken in an LTS release, you end up upgrading to a non-LTS to see if they've fixed the bug.

The root problem is that Ubuntu is more interested in random, useless crap like Unity and ALSA than they are in just fixing bugs and making something that works. Rolling releases won't make that any better or worse. You'll get the bug fixes sooner, but you'll also get new bugs sooner.

This is unfortunately the natural consequence of arbitrarily declaring certain releases 'LTS' without a distinc development cycle.By the time Debian or Red Hat release something as stable, enthusiasts are generally underwhelmed because the content is ancient from the second it is 'released'. An Ubuntu LTS release enjoys a brief period of appearing fresher, but that comes at a price, quality wise.

Canonical is in an unfortunate position where, as a business, they can't figure out a way 'in'. They are a very

Having used the Ubuntu LTS releases, I cannot disagree with this sentiment. On most systems I have returned to Red Hat Enterprise, or, more specifically, the CentOS derivatives, for quality releases. In my experience, the Ubuntu LTS releases aren't tested to the high standard that the Red Hat Enterprise releases are, but I expected that, to be honest, and wasn't surprised at all.

I've tried using LTS on some machines, but it hasn't worked out well. The trouble with it is that Ubuntu's quality is crap, and that applies to LTS releases just as much as non-LTS. For instance, they started gratuitously breaking sound with Jaunty, and as of Precise it's still broken on some machines I use. When important stuff is randomly broken in an LTS release, you end up upgrading to a non-LTS to see if they've fixed the bug.

For almost 2 years I'll been volunteering for a branch of Freegeek [freegeek.org] and in that tyme I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 on hundreds of PCs and most of the installs have been fine. So I don't know where you get LTS hasn't worked out well or that Ubuntu's quality is crap. You may not like the DE, Canonical, or how Ubuntu is run but that's different than saying the distro is crap.

For almost 2 years I'll been volunteering for a branch of Freegeek and in that tyme I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 on hundreds of PCs and most of the installs have been fine. So I don't know where you get LTS hasn't worked out well or that Ubuntu's quality is crap. You may not like the DE, Canonical, or how Ubuntu is run but that's different than saying the distro is crap.

Here's a list of bugs that I've personally experienced starting with jaunty:

The root problem is that Ubuntu is more interested in random, useless crap like Unity and ALSA than they are in just fixing bugs and making something that works.

Maybe we are talking about a different ALSA but ALSA has been the only reliable sound system on Linux for me for close to a decade. All of that other crap that comes and goes is useless, not ALSA. ALSA is good, useful, and reliable. A HUGE thank you to the developers... which reminds me, why is there anything other than ALSA even out there? What does crap like PulseAudio solve that ALSA did not solve a decade ago?

Pulseaudio solves the problem that only one process can use the sound card at once, by being that process and pretending to be the sound card for everything else ; even programs compiled against ALSA. This means you can hear your email ping, even when you listen to music.

It's a similar design to the sound system you get on Windows ; each application gets it's own volume, etc. The main problem I've had with it is that it's not 100% robust (it would go into a loop sometimes when receiving bad sound input), wh

Pulseaudio solves the problem that only one process can use the sound card at once, by being that process and pretending to be the sound card for everything else

But in several cases, such as every program using the Allegro library in 2009 or so when Ubuntu first adopted PulseAudio, PulseAudio has returned "Error: format not supported" when the real sound card would have returned "Format accepted; play on!".

Linux Mint Debian basically does that. They release the "update pack", and the user has to intentionally install it. Currently, LMDE is at UP6. The wife decided to update, she just went ahead and ran the updater without reading any of the release notes. Luckily, she got through the process without any problems. I did warn her to READ the release notes, AND to WAIT until a few days after release. At which time, it would be wise to browse the forums, looking for problems that people found during the upd

I like the idea of rolling releases, but given the amount of massively stupid crap that Ubuntu springs on us by just rolling it into a new release (unity, I'm looking at you), I also like the idea of freezing a Ubuntu box at a non-ugly release and having a box that at least receives security updates for a few years

I've been through both types - from Debian stable (freezing), to Debian unstable (rolling release), to Ubuntu (6 monthly releases), and the rolling release worked out best. Minor issues caused by

Assuming switching to a rolling release between LTS versions doesn’t disrupt Ubuntu’s growth in any way, the casual Ubuntu user doesn’t really have to pay too much attention to the switch should it happen, though they might get a little annoyed at the probably-higher frequency of software updates. To satiate the more in-depth user, Canonical could theoretically put out a test version in between the LTS releases, which would also help cut down on bugs in the LTS.

Which leads me to believe that this is targeted at the desktop builds, but the article was a bit skim on details.

If they dropped LTS for their server builds, I guarantee Ubuntu's popularity would drop faster than a whale out of the sky.

"If they dropped LTS for their server builds, I guarantee Ubuntu's popularity would drop faster than a whale out of the sky."

LTS is needed for (corporate) desktops too.

There's no way for a business to support a rolling release, not even a software development focused company. This means that Canonical either feels it already has a strong enough grip on corporations, so they can play the Red Hat/Fedora game or that they are simply crazy (just crazy, thinking they can retain a corporate grip out of their cur

I have a half dozen programmers and four (4) IT people, to support a site of several thousand hosts. Most of those hosts are in clusters, of course...

We have to verify and validate the software, put it on thousands of hosts, and then run it until the next upgrade. The name of the game is "stable". We don't want to upgrade the OS any more often than is absolutely required by the application.

Rolling releases are a complete non-starter for us. Sure, they are easier to support from the OS vendors perspective. But, they are absolutely unacceptable for customer whose primary business requirements for the platform are "stable" and "predictable".

If they're going to dump LTS, they need to be REAL careful about what shit they push out. I used Linux for many many years, but finally I just got tired of stuff breaking all the time, and switched to Mac OS, where Apple seems to be reasonably careful not to annoy me too much with their updates. Maybe Linux got better since then, but I doubt it judging by some of the discussions I read about on Slashdot, like massive controversies still going on about KDE vs Gnome, as well as major about faces going on WITHIN KDE and Gnome, AND talk of distros even going away from KDE and Gnone entirely. I don't mind things changing, even largish changes, but you ought to be REAL careful to make it smooth, and I don't see it happening.

If I have a huge change, like Wayland replacing X11 for the default apps. Where would that go?
Previously, it would go best into LTS+1 or LTS+2 (if LTS was a "long" freeze). The current release cycle allows the best flexibility for change.

Agreed. 14.04 will still be supported for 5 years, 16.04 for 5 years, etc. The rolling release jsut means more updates in the OS. Personally I'd like this better, I like to be with the new releases and experiment with the new features, but everytime I install a new version of Ubuntu it mucks up a setting I had before..

So with the rolling release you risk having some setting mucked up any time, without warning. Instead of having it mucked up when you install a new release, where the mere fact of installing a new release IS the warning that some settings will be mucked up (if only for the simple reason of changed functionality).

I left Debian because they decided that freezing their rolling release "unstable" branch was needed for many months before their next official release. I switched to Ubuntu 12.10 (an Interim release) and gained improvements in Kernel, GUI, and utilities. If Ubuntu would go with a rolling release, I'd be pleased as punch.

Some choose LTS for some really reasons. My company (software developer) long stood by Ubuntu 8.04. Now they're regretting that decision. New employees are trying to get

I use a fairly old LTS on an Ubuntu workstation at work because that's the same LTS that the hosting company providing our production server supports, which allows me to replicate as much of the production environment as I can.

The problem with that is debian has been making it harder to get non free software in a misguided attempt to appease stalman and the fsf to be a Gnu approved distro, and Bsd has far less software and hardware support

This is not a "misguided attempt at appeasing stalman", it's the realization that there is a limit to how much you can fuck with another human being's ability to not become a criminal for no other reason than a stupid technicality, and it's the refusal to do so when given the opportunity. Imagine... there are people out there that are NOT out to fuck you over... what a concept.

The problem is though to get the FSF stamp of approval you can't have even a opt-in non-free repo which debian has had but is getting closer to abandoning in a quest for the GNU stamp. How is my freedom protected by the removal of my ability to install software? How is removing the non free as in speech wifi/graphics driver repos supposed to help me when it means my laptop can't connect to the internet or display properly? By default the debian install is already free software but, GNU wants to remove my ab

I'm a big fan of long-term releases, only because I may be one of those individuals who might be responsible for systems that do not have access to the internet in order to support the "rolling release" model.

It's nice to be able to have a stable, known-good server installation on several isolated networks that just need an occasional update of dpkgs and completely expect it to work fine after it's been restarted. I don't think the same is expected in a rolling release model.

The idea that a rolling release maintains binary compatibility is, so far, been proven false. In our world, long-term releases make sense.

I'm a big fan of long-term releases, only because I may be one of those individuals who might be responsible for systems that do not have access to the internet in order to support the "rolling release" model.

I'm also a fan of those long term releases, for other reasons. That 20 Mbit fibre link is reliably enough, still on 10.04LTS here.

Reason: it works. It receives important updates (Firefox is at latest release), security updates, etc. All the while keeping my interface the same, the basic set of applications the same, and most importantly: it works.

Rolling releases mean any time, any day you may receive a very different UI. You may have applications replaced. Functionality seriously changed. All those big cha

I'm a big fan of long-term releases, only because I may be one of those individuals who might be responsible for systems that do not have access to the internet in order to support the "rolling release" model.

It's nice to be able to have a stable, known-good server installation on several isolated networks that just need an occasional update of dpkgs and completely expect it to work fine after it's been restarted. I don't think the same is expected in a rolling release model.

The idea that a rolling release maintains binary compatibility is, so far, been proven false. In our world, long-term releases make sense.

Well you wouldn't have to give up LTS then, TFA says they will still be available.

Purely speculation here but part Steam seems to be promoting Ubuntu for their Linux-based Steam client. Games often require patching to get acceptable or optimal performance. This announcement for Rolling Releases might be directed at keeping Valve / Steam happy.

Anything that improves Linux distros is good news. However, if Steam suddenly gets 100 million Linux gamers, the sudden popularity of Ubuntu (assuming at some point Steam might only work with Ubuntu) might not work in favor of other distros. I'm concerned that it might push too much development resources to get X & Y working which is popular for the gaming community but not for all other Linux / ''Nix users (personal, business, enterprise...).

I'm concerned that it might push too much development resources to get X & Y working which is popular for the gaming community but not for all other Linux / ''Nix users (personal, business, enterprise...).

I'm sure that there will continue to be many developers who won't work on the gaming side of things. On the other hand, if supporting gaming means that we finally get all the niggling media support problems sorted out, that's a good thing. The APIs don't have to be the best for very advanced use, but they must at least work reliably for simpler uses across very wide sets of configurations. (It's a matter of going from 95% done to 100% done; right now things work for almost everyone, but it's a lot of work t

I think the most sane approach would be too keep doing releases for the "core system", i.e. kernel and libraries. Applications are the "leaves" in the package dependencies graph and could be made rolling without compromising stability.

The idea of rolling releases is by itself a good one, as there is really no point in trying to get thousands of packages, that are in large part completely independed of each other, "stable" at the same time ("stable" mostly meaning we won't ship the fixes upstream provides). However far to often new packages also break stuff, be it just little things or Unity and Gnome3 comming along and wreaking your whole desktop environment. So could we please get proper support for downgrades or the installation of multiple versions per package first? If stuff breaks and I could just go back to the older version in a single click I wouldn't mind if stuff breaks. But right now I have to search for the.deb via arcane means, twiddle with raw dpkg and in the end might completely wreak the dependency tree as a result (try install old Gnome2 on modern Ubuntu, not easy). As long as upgrades are a one way street, rolling releases really sound like a bad idea if you want a stable system.

I've used Arch for years, which uses rolling release as well.I've noticed that rolling release doesn't tend to carry the breakage that dist-upgrade carries, because changes are gradual to the system, one at a time, and don't need to be tested in some arbitrarily defined time, which means they usually get tested more thoroughly too.

If they don't run it, then why do they care enough to come on Slashdot and post about it every time Ubuntu is mentioned? Do they have some sort of psychiatric issue that prevents them from behaving like normal human beings?

Do they have some sort of psychiatric issue that prevents them from behaving like normal human beings?

Umm.. THAT'S what normal human beings DO when they don't like something.. They complain about it, and hopefully stop using it.. AND if you don'tlike them complaining about it, don't read the comments.. Otherwise, YOU are the one with the "psychiatric issue"....

Me thinks you miss the whole point. If you piss off most of your user base the answer is not "just install something else" the answer is FIX the dang mess you made.

But I see Ubuntu swirling the drain, They are making moron decisions, and getting worse. But everyone else is as well. . Fedora 18 is also a steaming pile of doo-doo..

So Linux follows it's normal cycle of every 7 years making it crappy to the point that it get's reborn again. Mandrake was king until they pooched that one, then they died and Ubuntu rose from the ashes... Ubuntu is now pooched, so let's see who rises from the ashes this time.

(Never saw what the big buzzy was over Ubuntu in any case. I tried it a couple of times and found it marginally acceptable, but annoying.)

It Just Worked. Debian's ease of upgrade without the headaches. Frozen libraries so shit didn't break as often. No need to wipe and reinstall like Fedora recommends (and yeah, I ran RedHat/Fedora for YEARS, it was practically impossible to upgrade to the next release without wiping and fresh install).

I agree with you, and I tried unity on a couple versions of Ubuntu, and then switched to Gnome Classic. I get what unity is for. It is for hand-held devices and tablets. In his flawed vision, Mark Shuttleworth somhnow thinks that the desktop is dead and that he can single handedly force Ubuntu users to behave differently. That is simple arrogance and the result of a business model where decisions are made by a small cabal that doesn't have paying customers. What is worse is that Canonnical muffed it and

These distros are funny. They keep changing how they work and do things. "We're going to do something fresh and different" - abandoning what works. Then they fail. Redhat, Mandrake, Ubuntu... they've all done it.

Guess what? Debian is still pretty much the same as it was in 1998 (but yes, with newer packages, you jokers).

It's not about that, it's Linux, we use Linux because of its flexibility. Unity is an attempt to force Ubuntu users into something (worse) than say Gnome-Classic. They have dropped the support and "swagger" they used to have for Gnome-Classic and now its an unpolished hack job. That's the problem!

the amount of bitching i hear about unity versus the amount of time it takes to install something else (TM) is ridiculous.

I volunteer for an organization that collects old and used PCs then builds new ones with the good parts from the old ones. We then install Ubuntu. Until the start of 2013 we used Ubuntu 10.04, however with the new year we switched to Xubuntu 12.04. Some of the people in the organization don't like the new DE Canonical is using, Unity. As ease of use is one of the criteria we use, I suggested that we use Linux Mint as studies and surveys rate it as the easiest. However no one replied. Not right now, as I'm booted into Snow Leopard, but I have Ubuntu 12.04 installed on my Mac to dual-boot.

the amount of bitching i hear about unity versus the amount of time it takes to install something else (TM) is ridiculous.

It depends about whether you give a flying fuck about the long-term success of Linux. If you don't, sure, switch to KDE, MATE, XFCE or whatever, or just switch distro.

However, if Linux is going to be a contender, then the 'out-of-the-box' experience of one of the most popular and widely publicised Linux distros is pretty damned important, however easy or not it is for an existing Linux-head to fix. In its heyday, Ubuntu was both a 'safe pair of hands' for newbies and a solid distro for everyone else, and C

I upgrade quite a few older systems with malware-infested XP installs, and up until about a year ago, I'd been installing Ubuntu 10.04, with the users of said systems happy and content with the classic Gnome UI, as I'd theme'ed it as close to XP as I could. When 12.04 was released, I decided to see what this new Unity looked like for myself, since I'd heard all the grief online about it in earlier 2011 versions of Ubuntu, but I only install/use LTS versions. I installed it on a spare drive and put it in my

that only need change a library in a package, that's no reason nor call to have an unstable distribution. any LTS or solid distro like Debian can support a Facebook API from a repository of such similar transient unsteady wares

"Tell me, have they ever addressed the LDAP bug that's been sitting in a queue for 2+ years."

That's impossible!

Well, they close the bugs if no further feedback is given in, what? fifteen days? or when the next release is launched.

"It's a joke distro."

Basically yes. It's a pity all that effort wasn't pushed into Debian (and in the Debian way, of course -the worst problem is that Ubuntu has pushed some of its bad manners into Debian too by means of young developers that don't know any better).

no, while Debian outstanding for servers it lacks polish and attention to configuration detail for the desktop. things won't "just work", they'll take hours of forum time and twiddling configs. I've made Debian desktops work well, but I've 15 years experience working with GNU/Linux distributions...."normal" people aren't going to have the patience like some of us

I would love to get a bit more on this... What did you find *not* working... I'm actually looking for a replacement for Ubuntu. Been through slackware and gentoo.. I'm honestly leaning towards gentoo again. (I've asked this before, the general scense I get is that Debian is up to it, but would love as many second opinions as possible (don't wanna compile).)

I run Debian "unstable" at work. They have frozen it for months now and it will remain that way until the next "stable" release comes out. "Unstable" is running kernel 3.2 and Gnome 3.2. The current kernel is 3.7 and Gnome is 3.2.

Ergo, Debian "unstable" is not a rolling release nor is it current or "unstable".

Debian is no substitute for Ubuntu LTS. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Release_history [wikipedia.org] , Debian releases have generally only been supported for 3 years. Ubuntu LTS is supported for 5 years. The extra 2 years of not being forced to dist-upgrade a stable working system just to get security upgrades are very useful!

Nobody doubts that Unity developers think it's "a much better UI then Gnome ever was". And for your purposes, it may very well be objectively better than Gnome. But there are many people that may not use their computer in the same way as you and for them Unity is objectively worse. I happen to be one of those people and for me, the thought of using Unity was enough for me to give Xubuntu a shot. So far, it's almost as enjoyable as my Gnome 2.8 desktop on my workstation at work.

Correct me if i am wrong but don't you have to compile everything from source? if so why wouldn't i just go with gentoo as linux generally supports more consumer hardware? I know *bsd code is generally accepted as being more solid but will it support whatever random computer hardware i plug my usb drive into? will it just work out of the box on what ever computer i need?

OK, I'll correct you. You are wrong. You don't have to compile everything from source. Yes, you can "make install" your packages from ports source, but you can also "pkg_add -r" your packages from what amounts to a binary repository. Do understand that there is no update command to update binary packages, however. If not compiling from source, you are expected to "pkg_delete" the old version and then "pkg_add -r" the new version. They are in the process of introducing a new, more full-featured binary packag

Too little.. too late.. I'd been a staunch user/supporter of Ubuntu since 7.04, when I was introduced to it after using Slackware/Redhat/Fedora since 1994. But the Gnome3/Unity b.s. soured me on Ubuntu, and caused me to move to Debian/Mint, which AFAIK, already implements "rolling release"..

Not necessarily. I know quite a few former Ubuntu users that switched to Mint or even plain Debian because of the last few horrible releases. I wouldn't be surprised to discover Ubuntu is losing ground fast to other Linux distributions.